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The universe has a perverse sense of humour sometimes. Almost immediately after my last blog entry things went very poorly for The Analogue Laboratory and we found ourselves without a home for our dear little Lab. After a sickening emotional roller coaster ride we found a new (and dare I say better) home for The Analogue Laboratory as part of a brand new Adelaide arts hub called The Mill. We’ve spent the last few weeks fundraising, planning and building the new facility, which will be able to hold many more darkroom enthusiasts at once, and will be able to take advantage of The Mill’s inner city location and the *enormous*, light filled loft workshop space. We hope to be able to have regular weekend access for people who like to do their own black and white enlargements and semi-regular ‘wet plate weekends’ during which collodion enthusiasts can bring their props to the Lab and we will enjoy a weekend long making session. It’s going to be incredible!
We’ve found a lot of support from the photographic community and the wider arts community – recently we’ve received a grant from the Helpmann Academy to put towards our rent, and the very generous folks from Ductware have donated all the exposed ducting we will need to make the darkroom a super safe place to Get Excited & Make Things.
There’s a few more days of our online fundraising campaign to go and we can use all the help we can muster. There are some very generous rewards available for those interested in using the Lab when we are done, and some tidy little thank you’s for folks who’d just like to lend a hand.

We are so grateful for all the support we’ve received so far. It’s fair to say without the incredible experience we had being part of Fontanelle and the community backing behind us this Lab would have never have been reincarnated.

It doesn’t feel quite right leaving the New York experience so vague. I can’t even begin to describe what an enormous impact it had on all of us – that must be one reason I’m leaving it undocumented – I doubt I’d have the words or pictures to do the experience justice, although don’t get me wrong I have been trying!

October brings a month of getting my chips all lined up for more epic-ness. This month I have two frighteningly brilliant events to prepare and execute. The first on the calendar is the installation of a temporary public artwork on the Boat Ramp at Marino – with assistance from the City of Marion & as part of the Place2012 festival. This is my first public artwork, and I’m really excited! It happened quite organically – I had an idea, approached the council, they loved it and now we are all systems go! In the next few days Marino residents will get a little letter in their mailbox:

12.10.12

Dear Marino Residents,
This letter is to inform you of a short-term public artwork to be installed between October 24th and 27th on a section of the old Marino Boat Ramp. This artwork is designed by emerging City of Marion artist Aurelia Carbone, currently studying for her doctorate at the University of South Australia.
Aurelia is interested in anamorphic images, exploring designs that only form into recognisable shapes from a particular point of view. If you would like to come and view the artwork, Aurelia will mark the exact spot to stand on, when the work is complete, in order to view it to full effect. The painted image will be made with the absolute safety of our precious marine environment in mind. Aurelia uses environmentally friendly materials and methods so that they can cause no harm.
Aurelia says “For this new artwork at Marino I reflected on my experiences growing up and exploring this unique and fascinating corner of our coastline. I often acted out tales of exploration and discovery amongst the ragged rocks and found tide pools full of mystery.

This work is intended to fade over time as it is eroded by the sea and weather. It is my hope that, in time, it will become another of Marino Rocks’ secrets.”
Aurelia will be using projection on the evening of Wednesday October 24th to map out her image, before commencing painting work. There may be a generator running on that night from dusk, shutting down before midnight. If you have any concerns regarding this, please contact Marg Edgecombe, Unit Manager, Arts & Cultural Development on 0411 339 739.
This temporary public artwork is part of City of Marion’s participation in “Place 2012”; a series of Adelaide events exploring, and stimulating conversation about, our sense of place. We hope you, and the wider community, will be engaged by this site-specific cultural expression in your local area.
Regards,

How is that for support! So far it’s been a really positive experience.

The logistics have been interesting – because the work will be on the beach I wanted to make sure I was using materials that wouldn’t be harmful to the marine life ( who wants to be responsible for making a leafy sea dragon sick? Not me.) The Environmental Protection Agency were very helpful in looking over the project and the materials I was suggesting. I’m also battling the tides, so we have planned the project install for a dodge tide. I had no idea there was such a thing! Here is a digital mock-up of what I hope the project will look like when it’s complete.

November 2nd 2012 is the opening night of my solo show in the Project Space at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia. The exhibition is titled instant perspective machine and will involve the participation of the audience as an integral part of the machine’s operation – essentially the machine needs someone to drive it and I’d love that someone to be you. I will be reconfiguring the Space into an enormous optical illusion site, complete with a recording device in the form of a heavily modified Fuji Instax camera. Work the switches & make some pictures – it will be a lot more fun if you play too.

I’ll try to squeeze in a few more entries while the projects are in progress. Wish me luck!

My head is still spinning my Northern Hemisphere Summer with the MFA Photo program at Parsons has been intense. It’s not my preference to make work at such an accelerated pace – I’m slow even by normal standards – but it was a superlative opportunity and I’m more than a bit sad that it’s over I ♥ NY, I love Parsons, and I love the current MFA Photo students – it’s been a thrill to be surrounded by sensationally talented photographers.

I used the residency to experiment with something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’m often being encouraged (by people I really should listen to) to make video or animations. I find that suggestion a bit overwhelming as I will need a whole new skill set, new equipment, and a clue about where to start. As a warm up to working with longer narratives I’ve made a new photocomic.

The space I was given to work with had some quirks that I used to start the story narrative. I’d been working on this little puppet for such a long time – but I really didn’t know what he was going to get up to. The pipes and the little hole in the wooden floor gave me my staring point, from there the story just …grew? (the pun princess strikes again!) It was a very fun project, especially working with multiple anamorphic shapes in one spot. It got a bit complex there for a few days, see:

I do have some ideas about we the story goes next, and some more characters to introduce. That will have to wait until we are back home in Australia.

After I’d finished shooting for the little project above I discovered that I really wanted to use the space for another image for the Honest Magic series. Lucky for me Orlando was keen to be involved again.

The Parsons Summer Open Studios also gave me an opportunity to try out something I’m very interested in: incorporating an anamorphic installation and viewpoint as part of an exhibition. I transformed an old enlarger lens (found at a flea market on West 59th street) into a peep-hole device for the void illusion in my studio. It was great! It’s given me some fantastic ideas for my Project Space show at CACSA in November

It’s hard to know how to begin with this entry. It might be a good idea to follow the Mad Hatter’s advice and “begin at the beginning, and when you get to the end – stop!”

Storm clouds over the Highline

This story begins in China, at the PIP Festival. Amongst the many highlights of that trip was getting to meet the current graduating MFA Photography students and their professors from Parsons, New School University in New York City. The PIP Festival organisers had arranged accommodation for all of the visiting foreign students in one of two historic “courier stations” reinvented as bed & breakfast type establishments inside the ancient city of Pingyao. Because of this proximity the little clutch of South Australian students I was travelling with were included in several impromptu student demonstrations and mini symposia where all the international students were able to present their work. On one occasion we were given 5 minutes (timed) to present our research with no time to prepare notes. It was an excellent test. Anyway, anyway I’m babbling here, but, the upshot of all of this was that I had a forum to show my research to some international academics, smile and shake their hand and swap business cards. This whole social networking thing is an absolute mystery to me, and I have to work pretty hard at it as it doesn’t come naturally. I had an excellent role model in Sundari Carmody, who is not only an incredibly talented young photographer, but also an absolutely natural networker. She’s an outstanding travelling companion, too.

Who let him drive?

On my return to Adelaide I contacted the professors from Parsons, and applied to do a residency as a Visiting Scholar over their summer program. It was a long waiting game to find out if I was going to be accepted, but I kept busy by preparing for the possibility of a summer in New York City by applying for professional development grants through ArtsSA. Lucky for me, my applications were successful so when I did finally get the green light everything was (mostly) in place.

And so here I am!

Upper West Side Ground Score

For the moment I’m flying solo, the boys will arrive in early July and I can’t wait to see their sweet faces. However, this city is more everything than I could have ever imagined & I’ve kept myself very busy. So far it’s friendly, comfortable, kooky and exciting. This week was my first week of study and I’ve managed to meet almost all of the MFA Photo students across all years of the degree, many of whom are international students from around the globe. There has been much geek talk I’m ready to throw myself into an intensive period of making, although first I need to find out where in the city they hide all the broken optical instruments for me to scavenge. I also need to find a generous designer who will let me raid their scraps, and a sewing machine will speed things up too. Let’s see how lucky I can get.